


The Pilgrim and the Wayfarer

by D_Morgenstern



Category: Faerie Folklore, Original Work
Genre: Altered Mental States, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Disability, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Logic, Female Character of Color, Female Homosexuality, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color, Menstruation, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Multi, Neurodiversity, POV Lesbian Character, Polyamory, Selkies, Shadow people, Suicide, Suicide Themes, female poly, implied suicide, mental health positivity, they don't die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 11:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6467992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Morgenstern/pseuds/D_Morgenstern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronda and Tonya are young women locked away so their noisome hallucinations don't "bother" society. Ronda is determined to summon a selkie from the sea and become immortal; all so she and Tonya can live somewhere where no one will bother <i>them</i>.</p><p>But fairy gifts always require a sacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. World on fire with a smoking sun

**Author's Note:**

> This poor little story got caught in the crossfire of my illness (http://dmorgenstern.org/please-read/). Due to my ongoing issues I'm downgrading my professional presence. Nevertheless, I write stories to be read. As this story will never be circulated for publication, it will rest here. 
> 
> Chapter titles are lyrics from "World on Fire" by Les Friction. 
> 
> Feedback is appreciated.

Ronda strained against the car window to peer at the sea below.

Her departure from the real world was on a cold winter morning. She left nose wipes in her wake and fogged the window with her hot breath. Besides her sat not her parents but a social worker. The woman let her do as she pleased.

Ronda constantly wiped the clinging moisture away, desperate to see a full form of the implied shapes among the waves. The road followed the line of the cliffs below and Ronda yearned to open the door and fall into the crashing waves. Nothing solidified however in the froth of the water devouring the cliffs. Yet she would chase the dream every night. The fantasy of falling into a different world.

In the seat between her and the social worker, half-submerged in the front passenger seat, and the floor-boards between Ronda’s legs were her alters. The social worker and the driver were as still as fearful rabbits in their eerie presence. The alters however had no more concern for this world than the angels above.

From the age of twelve, the same time as her first menses, Ronda had been accompanied by alters. It had been a simple affair. She had simply awoke one day and at the foot of her bed there they had been; three black, shadow-like figures. They were ostensibly male, but with smooth anatomies one could not say for sure. They had no eyes, mouths, nor ears. There were indentations where such orifices should be present, but like the genitals there was only a suggestion of what should be.

The alters were solid and perfectly black. It was as if a noontime shadow had been given life. Yet they were silent things. They watched with no eyes, and never attempted to interact with any person or the environment itself. If an obstacle was in their path, they simply moved through it, as seamlessly as water through a sieve. If that barrier should happen to be a person they would complain of feeling death raking its claws over their soul.

They would swim like fish through walls and floors; floating on some intangible current. They never strayed far from their point of origin; Ronda. Sometimes there was one, two, none, but never more than three. They came and went as easily as a free roaming cat. They were as unconcerned with the uproar their existence created as any feline as well.

The institution chosen for Ronda’s own good was a red brick building that brooded over the high granite cliffs. It was government run as the Vogelsang Family were stanchly working class. The institution had a large child population and the most successful public program of rehabilitation. And for its failures, it also had the largest retained population.

The sound of the ocean was the most distinct feature of the place to Ronda. It roared every day and night. It shrouded the people and building with corrosive salt. They breathed in the sea’s caustic breath every second of their lives and the girl imagined polyps of salt forming in her body. One day they would burst her heart and she would become someone else. Someone who could go where she liked. Yet she foiled her own plans for weeks with the tears she wept every night.

Her kin were an eclectic bunch. There were schizophrenics with reality warped around themselves like a distorted mirror. Their world shook and screamed with an intensity a thousand times greater than that of other people. There were those with bugs crawling along their innards and their skin puckered and fell as their minds broadcasted what was within. There were the patients with borderline personality disorder whose every fault was magnified and broadcasted. Those who could hear the music of the spheres and it manifested as a heavenly light around their head. There were the depressed whose nagging voices manifested as screaming mouths all around themselves.

Ronda was given her own room, with a bed and dresser. Every Friday the library cart came through. There were lessons for the children, and in segregated classes. After all her womanhood was the reason she was here.

The only reason she was here. 


	2. I’ll cover you when the sky comes crashing in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronda and Tonya meet Maeve the selkie. She agrees to take them to Tir Na Nog, with a few conditions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Warning:_ This chapter and the next contains fat, and ableist slurs.

Inevitably books were the comfort of the lonely and marginalized. In time Ronda made friends with Tonya, a girl a year younger with auditory delusions that manifested in two ways. When she was stable they could be tiny instruments playing soft music around her person. When she was stressed, that small orchestra became critical mouths. They would comment on her dark skin color, her curly hair and weight. When she was in a very bad way they became a cacophony of shrieking.

The two girls shared their books between them. They enjoyed the escapism of fantasy and science fiction especially. Though there was little in the way of representation of themselves. In time Ronda set aside conjured fairy tales and fables for the thread of truth within the lore. She had never forgotten what she had seen in the waves on the day of her arrival.

“We can escape.” She decided three years after her imprisonment.

“What?” Tonya frowned over the rim of a thick tome. She was sitting with her back against Ronda’s bed with Ronda atop it. The door was closed as tightly as it was when they locked Ronda in every night.

“I was never asked if I _wanted_ to be here, were you?”

Tonya slowly shook her head. She glanced towards Ronda’s door, as if they were prisoners planning a mutiny. And to Ronda that was the exact problem.

“I just put my pills beneath my tongue, you know, after they just made me zonked and the alters didn’t go away.” Ronda snorted.

“Ronnie!” Tonya hissed. Ronda shrugged at her.

Ronda didn’t feel as if the alters were an impairment of her life. Sure sometimes people felt out of control and they needed pills to help them, like that schizophrenic girl in her class, but that wasn’t her right now. And why couldn’t she be the one to make that decision?

“Like they do you any good.” Ronda huffed. Tonya scowled but she couldn’t counter the pills had educed, but not eliminated the voices. 

Ronda bounced on her knees on her bed as she watched the wheels turn in Tonya’s head. 

The alter next to her never stirred. Tonya had been as frightened of them as anyone else at first, and though sometimes she still seemed uneased by their unearthliness. Tonya absent-mindedly waved away a small violin and trumpet that had appeared at her ear.

“But…do you _really_ think I could live outside?” Tonya asked incredulously. “I would be too much of a distraction.”

It was why even the functional had been placed here. Their neuroses and broadcasts were simply too annoying. No one wanted to be caught in a bus with someone who had shrieking, abusive voices assailing everyone in hearing distance. Certainly, no one wanted a six foot shadow man looming over them in the office! This they had been told again and again by Mrs. Brown, the octogenarian in charge of their therapies. If medication and therapy couldn’t be used to correct such conditions, the afflicted person had no choice but to live separately from society.

Ronda beamed, she lived to encourage her friend.

“Yes.” It was as simple as that. Ronda could see by Tonya’s furrowed brow she wasn’t convinced. The older girl swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Think about it, if we could just find a place where no one would bother us we get along great. I mean we don’t bother each other. So, why couldn’t we?”

“Bother us?” It was a new concept to Tonya. To Ronda however it was the truth. She didn’t bother other people, they bothered _her_ with their intolerance and demands.

“And they’ll hunt us down. Take us back.” Tonya snorted and looked back down at her book as the instruments on her shoulder had faded. She looked up again at Ronda with an obvious thought. “How would we have escaped anyway?”

“Ever heard of a selkie?” Ronda asked. Tonya blinked at her.

“The seal woman from Irish lore?”

“Uh huh. You can summon one by crying seven tears into the ocean.” Ronda nodded sagely. “I read about it in this book.”

Ronda retrieved it from under her bed, her orange hair flooding over her neck and onto the floor. Tonya gave a brusque sigh. Ronda pushed the heavy book towards the other girl, the pages were already opened to the section with selkies. Tonya picked it up and placed it in her lap.

“And if you managed to get one to come to you, what would you have done?” She asked.

“I’d offer my body in exchange for passage to Tir Na Nog. Selkies have a thing for humans.” Ronda raised her chin. Just like the heroines did in all those old romance novels. “It’s the Kingdom under the Sea, where no one ever grows old.”

Tonya could no longer hold in her amusement. She laughed, “You want to be fifteen forever?”

“Well”, Ronda realized she had never thought of it that way. She shrugged, “I make the sacrifice if it meant we get to live forever somewhere where no one would ever bother us.”

“You don’t think fairies would?” Tonya raised an eyebrow. Ronda looked away.

“As I said I let the selkie have me, and it be okay after that.”

“You’re so cavalier.”

“Thanks.” Though Ronda was not quite sure what that meant. She looked back at her friend. “Will you go down to the shore with me?”

“ _How_?” Tonya prompted again with a sigh.

“Easy. You know how I’ve been assigned kitchen duty? Mrs. Brown has trusted me enough to let me lock up at night.”

“‘Goodness! Ronda! You’ve made such progress!’” She imitated the former nurse’s faux British accent. She grinned as she resumed her own voice. “I’ll just ‘forget’ to lock the back door.”

Tonya was quiet for a long time. She licked her lips and at last said “You know if we’re caught they’ll probably lock us in our rooms for a week.”

“That’s okay. If they do I’ll knock on the walls like this.” Ronda leaned against the wall at her headboard and knocked it with her knuckles in a rendition of “A Shave and a Haircut”. “And you’ll know then I’m thinking of you, whatever the voices say.”

Tonya dropped her head and gave a small laugh. She raised her head however and her body followed. She enclosed Ronda in a tight hug.

“Okay, then. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

 

 

They ran down to the shore with hands held. It was dark and cold. The water below sent drafts of cold air screaming up the cliff face. Once they were away from the lights of the institution they had moonlight alone. Flashlights would too easily alert the staff some of the patients had fled. Ronda purposely choose the night the moon was at its zenith. She also waited until she was menstruating. She would always remember her the blood between her legs had been blamed for her disassociation.

They found the small path that led about halfway down the cliff. After that they had to climb down. It was along that precipice however the voices Tonya could not keep inside manifested.

_“Fat, stupid bitch!”_ The lolling mouth screeched into the night. The insult bounced against the cliff as sharply as any projectile. Tonya flinched but swallowed and squared her shoulders. She met Ronda’s gaze, she was going to complete this with her. Ronda gently squeezed her hand and led her further down _._

_“You’ll never do anything; you’re worthless!”_

_“Hey, Tonya, you just won the fuck-up of the month award!”_

Tonya’s face twisted as she tried to shut out the voices. Ronda knew however she had no more control over them than she did the alters. She could only guide her friend down towards the soft sand where the alters were already waiting for them.

The sight of them gave Ronda pause, she had never seen them actively wait. It was an acknowledgement something was happening in her sphere. Were these entities beginning to evolve?

She ignored them as she helped Tonya down from the cliff face. Their hands were raw and their knees scraped even with jeans on. It had been a perilous descent, and there was no way they could ascend the grating surface. Tonya collapsed with gasping breaths, partially from her exertion but more from the abuse of her voices. She held her head high however even as the voices continued to scream at her. They only abated as she led Ronda by the hand down to the shore, down to the waiting shadows that had become beyond opaque in the moonlight.

“So…seven tears, right?” Tonya glanced up towards the cliff however, wondering as Ronda was if they would notice earlier than the two am check that they were gone.

“Yeah, but, I’m not sure if that means saline tears.” Tonya raised an eyebrow and Ronda shrugged. “I’m on my period and it may have meant…that.”

“Oh, gross!” Tonya shook her head.

“Okay, listen, when the alters first showed up everyone said it was because of my period.” Ronda explained.

Scientists had postulated they were inter-dimensional beings. Entitles that existed in the fourth dimension that were somehow crossing over into our dimension. Doctors had pronounced they were departed dead, reaching out for help. Priests had decried them as demons from hell.

Everyone had blamed Ronda however.

Her parents had been told her budding sexuality had torn a rift in space-time as only a female could by scientists. The doctors had blamed the alters on the schizophrenia of adolescence. The priest had theorized she must have recently lost her virginity and was tempting demons to her side.

So she would do just as they had told her she could.

“They said that demons can smell blood or whatever. So why not fairies?”

“You guys went to a messed up church.” Tonya frowned. Ronda shrugged, well it had certainly gotten her here.

“I’m gonna take off my pants and underwear and go into the ocean. You can cry into it.” Ronda announced.

“You’re gonna get a cold!”

“Worth it.” Ronda laughed as she slipped off her jeans and underwear and carefully folded them. She placed them atop the two small, and waterproof, bags Tonya and she had packed. On a second thought she removed her shirt as well.

Five minutes later and Ronda wished she was not so foolhardy. She also hoped this would not be when Mrs. Brown appeared with her “oh my!” and “goodness!” in the most annoying tenor possible in the Queen’s English. There was no way that arthritic eighty year old was going to be able to scale that cliff however. She wrapped her arms around herself as she now only wore a bra in the frigid sea.

Tonya didn’t need much prompting to play her part. The voices were still echoing in her soul. She collected her tears in her hand and released them into the froth. Ronda stood rigid and hoped she was actively bleeding. Her jaw was tight to prevent it from chattering. Slowly however her body was beginning to adjust in some small way to the frigid water. Tonya glanced at her.

“Do we say something?”

“I don’t know.” Ronda admitted as her teeth rattled in her shivering mouth. She licked her lips and raised her voice. “Hey selkie! We want to talk to you!”

“You need to get your fool ass out of the ocean before you freeze to death,” Tonya murmured. Ronda turned to face her with some oblique statement of hope. She then felt cold hands land on her shoulders. A voice as fine as ocean spray licked over her ear.

“You called?”

Ronda turned on her heels and lost her footing. She fell beneath the surface of the water where she could see the shadow of legs. She quickly pushed herself back up. Her hair was now matted over her face. She quickly pushed it back to see a woman standing in the moonlight.

The woman was shaped much like a seal. She was fat with pendulous breasts and a slouching belly. She was heavier than Tonya at her180lbs though about as tall as Ronda and Tonya both at about five foot and a half. She had a dark complexion with freckles crowning her nose and cheeks.

She was the most beautiful woman Ronda had ever seen.

She had sloe eyes that were large and bright. Her lips were full and inviting. Her hair was silver and sleek, clotted on her neck and shoulders in the ocean spray. Upon her shoulders was tied a grey seal pelt, just like that of the harbor seals that crowded the shore of this very cove.

“Ha….are you, um, a selkie?” Ronda’s heart began to fill with glee. She had done it! Or, Tonya had. Either way they had done it! As Ronda rejoiced an alter was suddenly near. The fairy gave it a nonplussed look.

“I am Maeve, a Daughter of the Ocean.” She confirmed. She raised a shapely eyebrow. “You two are the sort of humans who broadcast your inner workings.”

“Ah, yes. Don’t worry about _them_ ,” Ronda waved a hand at the alter. “They do no harm. None of our stuff does.”

Ronda glanced over her shoulder at Tonya. The other girl was crouching on the shore like prey in the sight of a predator. Before Ronda could begin to fathom her reaction Maeve spoke again.

“Don’t underestimate yourself. Having separate selves is a very useful trait.” The selkie narrowed her eyes. She raised her chin, “what do you want Pilgrim?”

“Um, my name is Ronda, Vogelsang. Ronda Vogelsang.” The selkie didn’t acknowledge the correction. Ronda’s shoulders dropped. “And she’s Tonya Redside.”

Tonya said nothing after her introduction. The air grew tense with a sublimated hostility that was as much carried in the selkie’s beautiful eyes as Tonya’s silence.

“Okay, so I have a deal for you.” Ronda became poignantly aware of her nudity. She drew her arms up over her soaked bra. “If you take us to Tir Na Nog, I’ll let you sleep with me.”

“Don’t do it!” Tonya suddenly cried out. Ronda turned towards her. Tonya pushed herself up. Her tear soaked cheeks shined in the moonlight.

“Ron, we can find our own way. I don’t trust her!”

“But--!” Maeve interrupted Ronda with a low growl. It raised the hair on Ronda’s neck. She was beginning to see the origin of Tonya’s fear.

“Don’t waste my time Pilgrim. I will take you to Tir Na Nog.” A shadow fell over Ronda as the selkie raised her hand, it was far colder than the churning sea around her. In a second Tonya vanished. Ronda screamed and turned on the selkie.

“What did you do?!”

“I just made sure you wouldn’t steal my pelt.” Upon the selkie’s palm appeared an amethyst of a color unseen by any human before. It was embedded into her very skin. “Your kind are liars and cheats. You lay with me to enslave me. I will no longer allow it. If you take my pelt I will shatter this gem and kill your friend.”

“No! No!” Tears filled Ronda’s eyes. “This isn’t what I wanted! I have no want to enslave someone! I have been a prisoner myself! How can you be so cruel! I just wanted somewhere for Tonya and me to live!”

The selkie was silent. Her sloe eyes were as inert as those of the alters. Ronda beat her chest in agony.

“How do you think people like me are treated?! Something inconvenient to be shut away! I have been locked away for three years! You call me ‘Pilgrim’ that’s something bad too, isn’t it?!”

“A pilgrim is someone who can walk many paths.” The fairy narrowed her eyes. She bowed her head. “And your words have moved me. I cannot trust you, but I will give you a boon human. I will take you to the entrance of Tir Na Nog. You will find however the path that leads to it is not easy to walk. You are mortal, to become immortal, to live as a fay, a sacrifice is required.”

“When will you give me Tonya? How will she become immortal?”

“She too must walk the path and sacrifice. I would give her to you after we make love.”

“No.” Ronda narrowed her eyes. “If I complete the journey, I’ll be fay, right? You could trust me then, couldn’t you?”

The selkie looked at her a long time. She at last nodded. “But how can I know you’ll survive?”

“For Tonya, I will.”

“Then,” the selkie offered her hand where Tonya was contained. Ronda shied away and dressed on the shore. She could no longer stand such vulnerability. When she was fay would she be as free as the selkie to stand in defiance of all mortal propriety? Nothing chained that creature!

She gathered their two bags, nothing more than a few changes of clothes and some especially loved books. Ronda returned to her guide and offered her hand. She enclosed Tonya with the livid pulse in her palm. 


	3. Let the healing light come in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it means to become immortal.

In the legends Tir Na Nog was a golden land of fruit and honey, where everyone was young and beautiful. A place of sumptuous orchards, gleaming castle, and endless feasts. A place any would exchange mortal life for.

Ronda arrived at its distant shore to find it barren and jagged. A thousand sharp spines of upheaved rocks with thousands of paths between them. It was a harsh reflection of the cliff they had scaled to escape from the mortal shore.

The sky above however was of endless beauty. A constant roiling of the ocean above with all its shades of blue, green, and gray. Somehow the sunlight that filtered down was as bright as the mortal sky. Ronda shivered though she was completely dry.

“This is Tir Na Nog?” Ronda raised her face to look at the rushing waves above.

“Nay, this is the entrance, the Land where Death Dwells.” Maeve exhaled. She peered intensely at Ronda. “You must choose a path, Pilgrim.”

“Let Tonya go.” Ronda countered. Maeve shook her head.

“Not quite yet.” She reached into the contours of her pelt and retrieved a small dagger contained in a sheath of a shimmering, red material. When Ronda withdrew it she found it was of polished silver. Maeve smiled, and it was not a kind one. “It is a gift.”

“I’ve heard it’s bad to take gifts from your kind,” Ronda furrowed her brow. The fairy shrugged and with a roll of her wrist the amethyst in her palm disappeared. Tonya collapsed upon her knees before Ronda.

“Tonya!” She gasped and put her arms around her friend. The other girl remained in a rigid crouch.

“Where are we?” Tonya put a hand to her forehead. “I feel like I blacked out.”

Ronda decided to not tell her she had been a jewel, even one of amazing and vibrant color. She also carefully placed the dagger in her pants pocket before hugging her friend again.

“This is the way into Tir Na Nog.” She gently pulled Tonya up to stand before the start of a path. “Maeve told me we have to walk one of these paths, and sacrifice something to become immortal and live in Tir Na Nog.”

“Sacrifice?” Tonya asked lowly. She glanced at the looming cliffs, so like the ones that has scraped their hands and knees. She looked at the impassive Maeve and narrowed her eyes.

“Should we really trust her?”

“I think she was enslaved once. She has an idea of what we’ve been through.” Tonya looked up at Ronda in surprise. The older girl smiled. “She took me here and agreed to wait until I’m fay to seal the deal.”

She whispered into Tonya’s ear, “I think she feels a little sorry for us.”

Tonya gave her a wary look. Nevertheless she nodded and took Ronda’s hand. They turned towards a path.

“Well I guess we have no choice then.”

Maeve walked up to them. “You can start a path together but you will be separated as we must all walk our own path.”

She glanced at the alters, all gathered along the shore.

“Or, paths.”

She left them. She picked a path and was devoured by its shadow. Ronda shook her head with the fatigue of a lost night’s sleep. Together they chose a random path and were plunged into darkness though the sun beamed brightly overhead.

It was a winding, uneven trail. The sides of stones were smooth but with edges sharp enough to slice. Ronda cut her palm from pinky to thumb on one specious corner. She let go of Tonya’s hand to apply pressure to her wound with the sleeve of her jacket. The well could not be dammed easily however and she was required to rip the sleeve and tie it around her hand. When she finally raised her head she found she was alone for the first time in three years.

No alters, and no Tonya. The wind whistled through the empty canyons with a slicing tune. Ronda gave a low cry of fear.

“Tonya? Tonya!” Only her echo answered her. She walked a few feet and looked down every turn that her friend could have taken. Her alters didn’t look back at her. She was a singularity, floating in vast space.

She glanced at the way back but she could no longer hear the distant shore. She sighed, she was in a labyrinth with no string. Besides, she couldn’t leave until she found Tonya again.

She closed her eyes, but she had no more psychic connection to her alters than she did any other human being. They had always been distinct entities, even if they were not separate personalities. Ronda blinked as she came across a possibility she had never contemplated before.

But what if they’d never had personalities because they had always been in the presence of _her_ , the original personality? What if her presence had simply meant they’d had no need for personalities? If the alters were vessels, they must carry something. She had always recognized that they, in some way, were meant to be conduits. It was why she had felt familiarity and never hostility.

_“You can walk many paths.”_ Maeve’s voice floated back to her. Ronda’s fists clenched. That damned fairy! She should have remembered they never said anything straight! This is what the selkie had meant.

Her alters were walking different paths. Two to perhaps find the way out, and one was likely still with Tonya. Ronda gasped, but what should she do next then? She had no need to look for the way out, and no need to find Tonya.

The sacrifice.

There was no other task left. Ronda exhaled slowly. She slowly sank to the ground. Maeve had given her that silver dagger knowing all along! She felt bile rise in her throat. The sickening feeling choked her. She covered her mouth to contain her vomit and screaming.

_“Can we really trust her?”_ Tonya had known in some way all along!

Yet she could not find it within herself to hate the fairy-woman. They had no idea about the value of human life. They could have no appreciation for the fear of death.

And this would be the last time she felt it ever again.

Ronda raised her hand. With a series of rapid taps with her knuckles against the stone she sounded out “A Shave and a Haircut”. She waited a few seconds. The melody came back to her, too faint for an echo, but loud enough to be her heart.

She raised the silver dagger. She looked up at the rush of the waves overhead, a perpetual azure sky. She didn’t miss her mark.

And with one stroke the Pilgrim became immortal.

 

 

On the farthest boundary of Tir Na Nog a new fairy walked into its luxurious sprawl of tall grass and every kind of wildflower. She looked into its bounty with apprehension, yet a deep sense of belonging. All she knew were the voices. She had arrived at this shore with only a small bag in hand and the clothes on her back.

_“Murderer! Killer! It’s your fault she died!”_

“Who died?” She murmured, but the vicious mouth at her hip didn’t answer. A shadow fell across her side and she looked up at the azure sky. It was darkening to a deep cobalt as the sun fell away. Nevertheless there was so sense of time. The sunset was a meaningless gesture in a place where death didn’t walk. If someone had died the fairy had no idea when it had happened. It could have been an hour or century before.

Someone was walking towards her. A saxophone began a hot jazz duet with a trombone. The music of her soul, perched on her shoulder.

The other fairy had the body of a youth like her, but with pale skin, freckles and orange hair. In her hand was also a small bag. The other woman smiled and the fairy saw warmth in her brown eyes. Behind her were two shadow-people, manifestations of this person’s self.

She paused far beyond hearing distance, and rapped her knuckles against the cliff face. The entrance to all trials. The fairy put her hand down and felt the reverberation of the melody. Something stirred deep within her, a memory from a dream of a tune that would always let her know she was loved.

Who had loved her?

She gently reprised the tune with her own knuckles as the other woman came near. The woman gave a choked laugh as tears rimmed her eyes.

“I’m Pilgrim.” She introduced herself. The fairy felt churning almost like dread in her belly. Something here was painful, but familiar. “Who are you?”

“I’m…” She paused. She realized she had never spoken this name before. “I’m Wayfarer. Because I’ve come a long way, but I don’t know where from.”

Wayfarer raised a hand to her forehead. “It’s strange but when I look at you, I think I feel nostalgia. I’m not sure why. I’m sorry, I…”

Pilgrim smiled and interrupted her suffering silence by kissing her cheek.

“We all had to give something up to be here.” Pilgrim informed her softly. She gently took Wayfarer’s hands in her own. Her tears slid down her cheeks and soaked their hands. “All I ask is, can I be you friend?”

“Yes,” Wayfarer blinked. She had given the answer without thinking. She knew those tears were for something lost.

Pilgrim looked up and gave a fragile smile. “Thank you.”

She pointed at the bag. “When we get to where we are going, open it. There are things in there that will explain how we got here.”

“Where we are going?” Wayfarer mused on the idea. As she did Pilgrim turned to look behind her.

There came another fairy, a Daughter of the Ocean. She was stark naked with only the cherished sealskin to denote her race. Her silver hair recalled a shore at night, and desperateness.

“We can all get to know each other. Maeve, this is Wayfarer.”

Maeve nodded at her. Pilgrim took her the seal-fairy’s hand.

“I don’t know what’s in your past, Maeve, but I won’t treat you like others have. Let’s get to know one another, all of us, before we make any decisions on who we like to be to each other.”

The ocean’s daughter blinked and slowly smiled as she nodded. Pilgrim wrapped her arms around both of her companion’s waists.

Wayfarer grinned as she realized where she like to go. “Let’s go somewhere where no one will bother us.”

Pilgrim gave a laugh and a soft moan. Wayfarer took her hand and that of the Daughter of the Ocean. She would show them the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated.


End file.
